We bring you another interesting utility of Windows 10: Disk Management. Talking about the new Windows 10 is an on-going discussion as there are lots of things to explore. To give a brief about Disk Management, it is the tool that lets you carry out the basic works of the disk utility even without buying any extra software. You can do the tasks like creating a hard disk partition or resizing it or even removing it if needed. In short, you can manage all the activities related to the disk partitions in Disk Management. Well, in this article we will showcase you all the details of the Disk Management so that you can have a clear idea about this utility and you will also be able to figure out the things that you can perform.
So, to begin the tutorial, we will see how to access Disk Management in Windows 10.
How to Access Disk Management in Windows 10
First Way: Power Menu
- The easiest way to access the Disk Management in Windows 10 is the Power user Menu. All you need to do is to make right click on the Start Menu icon and in the arrived list of commands, you will see Disk Management. Perform a click on it to open.
Second Way: Search field
- Another way, t0 access Disk Management in Windows 10 will be from the Cortana search field. There, you need to type disk management and the results list will have one option called Create and format hard disk partitions. Click on that and Disk Management window will arrive.
Third Way: Computer Management
We present you another way to access Disk Management in Windows 10. If you don’t know how to get into the Computer Management, we recommend you to make a look into our article of Computer Management.
- So when you are into Computer Management, the left column of the window shows you some list of items. Make a click on the Storage and you will see Disk Management listed under it. The middle pane of the Computer Management will list you the details of the Disk Management.
Quick Look at the Disk Management
Apply any of the above-mentioned options and you will get access to the Disk Management window. Well, after its arrival on your screen you will see the list of disk partitions with details like their name, size, and status. Make a note of one thing that the Disk Management utility will only be able to control file systems that suit the operating system of Windows like NTFS or FAT16/FAT32. But of course, it can view the partitions of other types, like the ones created by Linux or different operating system.
How to Delete a Disk Partition with Disk Management in Windows 10
- For definite reasons, you might wish to remove a certain partition of your hard drive. You can create some space to expand a current partition or even renovate the partition with a separate size or file system. So, look at the partition that you wish to remove. Execute right-click on it and choose Delete Volume command.
- A Delete simple volume wizard will pop up and will wait for your confirmation before preceding the removal process as you should know that the removal process might delete all the data. Grant it the permission by clicking on the Yes button.
Disk Format Utility
- After its removal, in the Disk Management utility, you will see the removed partition as Unallocated or Free space.
How to Create a Disk Partition with Disk Management in Windows 10
- If you find a free space on your hard drives, you can utilize that space by creating another partition. Now you will see the unused or unpartitioned space as Unallocated or Free space as already mentioned above. Now, to create a partition there, make right-click on it and choose New Simple Volume.
- This action will lead to the popup of New Simple Volume Wizard where you need to click on the Next button. In the next action, you have to mention the size of the partition. You can wish to set the whole free size or can even use a part of it as the partition. Click Next.
- Now in the next step, you will see three options to choose from. You can even allot a drive letter to your partition or choose to mount it in an empty NTFS folder or omit allotted any drive letter or drive path. Choose your preferred option and then make a click on the Next button.
- Here, you will be queried for the information that by what means the partition will be formatted. Make a point that if you wish to utilize this partition, it has to be formatted. The preferred and default is to use the NTFS and in most of the times, it is used.
But in case you don’t wish to format the partition, you have the option to choose Do not format this volume. Now, if you have decided that the partition will be formatted, choose the option that says Format this volume with the following settings. Select NTFS for the File system and set the Allocation unit size to its Default and then label the volume in the Volume label field. The label that you provide will be displayed after the drive letter when you view it in the File Explorer. So, decide whatever option you wish to choose, select it and click on the Next button.
A detailed summary of the partition’s settings will be displayed in the following screen of the New Simple Volume Wizard. Take a look at the details and when satisfied click the Finish button.
Once it is done, get back to the Disk Management window and you will see the new partition is on formatting. Depending on the size of the partition and the performance of your computer, it will take few minutes.
After the completion of the formation, you will see the partition listed with the others.
How to Format a Partition with Disk Management in Windows 10
- You can perform a format on the already created partition, but you should know that it will wipe out all the data from that particular partition. Right click on that partition and select Format option to do the formatting.
- As stated above, provide the Volume Label, File system, and Allocation unit size in the Format window of the selected drive. Here, also, the volume label will be exhibited after the drive letter when you see it in the File Explorer. Click Ok.
- Again Ok button, when asked for confirming the procedure as the data stored on the drive will be wiped out.
- Here also depending on the size of the partition and pace of your PC your formatting will be completed.
How to Resize a Partition: Expanding and Contracting with Computer Management in Windows 10
Considering the free or unpartitioned space just ahead or after the partition, you can also expand and contract the FAT16/FAT32 and NTFS partitions with Disk Management. You don’t have to format the partition when you go for the expansion as it is not necessary.
- So, make right-click on it and choose Extend Volume Wizard.
- The Extend Volume Wizard will appear where you need to click on the Next button. It will show you how much space is free that you can add up to your present partition. Choose the amount of size you want to add up and click Next.
- You will see the short abstract of the changes. Click Finish.
- See the newly expanded size of the selected partition in the Disk Management.
- Many users might need to contract a partition. There will be some files present on the disk that will restrict you from the contracting the volume when you try for the one that holds Windows operating system. If you want to contact the partition that holds Windows operating system, you will see it in another article which we will cover soon. Now, look for a partition, right-click on it and choose Shrink Volume.
- It will take quite some time by the Querying Shrink Space window to scan that whether the volume is capable of shrinking or not and also how much disk space can be retained.
- After this, it will ask you for how much space you wish to take out of the partition. Put the desired amount of space in the respective fields and click on Shrink button.
- Get back to the Disk Management window and see your partition in the smaller size with an extra space.
How to Change a Drive Letter and Label with Disk Management in Windows 10
- Right click on the drive whose drive letter and its label you wish to change. Among the list of arrived options, you will click on the Change Drive Letter and Paths option.
- Another window will emerge with the partition and concerned drive letter that you wish to change. Click on Change button.
- In the next step, use the drop-down menu and choose your preferred drive letter and click on Ok button.
- Disk Management will wait for your confirmation to carry out the changes. Click Yes.
- Take a look into the Disk Management and you will see the drive letter changed.
- Now, we will see how to change the label of the partition. And to make it happen, right-click on the partition and choose its Properties.
- The Properties window of the selected partition will open up. Take your attention to the General tab. You will see a disk icon in the General tab and a field next to it where you will provide a new label to the partition. Click Ok.
In the End
So we have learned that Disk Management in Windows 10 will make our work easy while handling the disk partitions. Share the settings or management secrets with your friends and help them in managing their disk partitions. Many more advanced things are there to see and they are mostly put into use by the advanced users. We will soon bring you more of Windows 10 till then enjoy the experiments!
You may like to Read: The brain 9 download.
Windows 10 – How to Open and Use Disk Cleanup
HP USB Disk Storage Format Tool is a Windows- based format utility. It can format any USB Flash drive in FAT, FAT32, or NTFS file systems and creates DOS startup disks that can help boot a PC.
HP USB Disk Storage Format Tool is portable freeware, so you can carry it on a USB drive and format other Flash drives on any Windows PC, or even copy it to a PC, run it, and then just delete it.
Overall, HP USB Disk Storage Format Tool utility will format any USB flash drive, with your choice of FAT, FAT32, or NTFS partition types. You can also make the disk bootable by specifying a file location. The downside is that you may have to run the tool as administrator.
Let's face it. Despite how far we have come in the evolution of file systems, such as NTFS, ext4, and HFS+, one thing's for certain, nothing seems to beat the old-school FAT32 file system for high interoperability between major operating systems with read-and-write capability (and a master file allocation table that doesn't trash itself as easily as the newer exFAT can).
The unfortunate reality we all face is that, due to odd licensing arrangements and a thing I like to call 'OS Nationalism,' most file systems tend to be built only for the operating system they were intended to run with and have either limited or no support on competing platforms. For instance, a drive formatted as NTFS for Windows is not write-capable on Mac OS X without some additional third-party drivers.
However, should you trust a third-party tool with your data if you were unsure about it? And even if you were okay with such additional software, this won't exactly save you should you take your drive on the go and plug it into a shared machine without administrative privileges and aforementioned drivers.
Beyond 32GB
Despite FAT32's shortcomings in terms of maximum file size limits, lack of ACLs, and disk quotas support, it's good enough for basic sneaker-net type activities between operating systems. Unfortunately, when the user wants to prepare a drive for use in this fashion, there is one major problem: Windows cannot format drives and partitions larger than 32GB in FAT32.
You may even consider making a partition sized at 32GB initially and then resizing it to fill the rest of the empty space. But within Windows, using the basic storage tools to resize operations is not supported on file systems other than NTFS. The only solution that I have been able to find for this 32GB limit problem is a utility called FAT32 Format by Ridgecrop Consultants Ltd.
On first glance, FAT32 Format (the GUI version of the fat32format tool shown in Figure A) looks very similar to the normal format tool built into Windows. Just download this utility, run it, pick a drive or partition you wish to format, and presto! There isn't much else to it.Figure A
This is the GUI version of the fat32format tool.
FAT32 Format does require administrator privileges in order to mess around with any of your drives. Also, since FAT32 Format does not perform disk integrity checks on any newly formatted FAT32 spaces, it is advised to run the command 'chkdsk /R x:' after the format, replacing 'x:' with the appropriate drive letter in question. This process will take some time to complete, of course, so you might want to pop a cold one while you wait.
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Formatting hard drives and external hard drives is usually a fairly straightforward process. The two most popular operating systems, Windows and Mac OS both have formatting utilities built-in, which makes formatting external drives even more convenient. However, with all of the different drive manufacturers, interfaces and other compatibility and formatting issues that hard drives can have, sometimes the best choice is to use specialty formatting apps and utilities.
The Windows Disk Management function, pictured above, allows Windows users to simply format and partition external drives. However, there are times when it simply doesn’t work very well. For example, the drive that you are trying to select for formatting may not be recognized by the utility, or it may be greyed out and not clickable.
If you are unable to get a hard drive formatted or partitioned correctly using the built-in apps that are offered by Microsoft and Apple, then your next step may be to try and format the drive directly, using command line. If you’re comfortable using command line, then you may want to check out our guide on how to format external hard drives to FAT32.
Additionally, your computer may not recognize the external hard drive whatsoever. If this is happening, this guide may be useful.
In those cases where a hard drive is simply not formatting, partitioning, etc., you may want to consider using a specialty hard drive formatting utility, which will often times make things simpler. In many cases, these utilities are often more effective than the built-in options that Windows and OS X offer as well.
EaseUS Partition Master Home Edition
If you need to manage partitions, copy partitions or even create boot disks, EaseUS Partition Master Free Edition is an excellent utility that can handle all of that and more.
Currently one of the highest ranked hard drive utilities on many websites, this lightweight Windows app is a bit more intuitive than the built-in Windows Disk Management function, offering several additional options and features. Font like proxima nova free.
You can resize or move partitions, merge partitions, check partitions, wipe partitions, format partitions and change the label. If you need to perform some more advanced tasks like convert the partition or clone it, you’ll have to upgrade to the paid version.
MiniTool Partition Wizard
MiniTool Partition Wizard Free is a freeware disk partitioning and formatting utility that is simple to use and effective. The interface is quite straightforward and the software is excellent at making complex formatting options simple.
It supports Windows 10, just about all file system formats, UEFI and EFI boot, MBR and GPT disks, RAID storage, and SSDs. You can use it to extend your system partition, migrate your OS from a standard HDD to a SSD, convert file system, and lots more.
Paragon Partition Manager Free
Paragon Partition Manager free is another great little utility that supports Windows 10 and has a lot of features. It’s four basic functions: backup and recovery, partition manager, disk wiper and drive copy.
What I like about Paragon is that the each function in the software has its own wizard. Fnaf 1 full game free. For those who are uncomfortable with making these kinds of changes, the software does a good job of easing you through the process. They also have a paid version that supports more features and works on bigger drives.
AOMEI Partition Assistant
The last recommended partition manager is AOMEI Partition Assistant. It’s pretty much got all the same features as the other programs mentioned above and it also has a freeware version.
It’s also regularly updated and supports Windows 10. Some options will be available in the free version while others will require the paid version. This is true for all of the programs mentioned above. If you only need to perform a one-time task and one program doesn’t work for you, I suggest trying another one before making any purchase.
HP Disk Storage Format Utility
While the other software on this list focus specifically on external hard drive formatting, the HP Disk Storage Formatter specializes in USB devices such as flash drives. This ultra simple formatting utility has just a few options, but it is effective and has received some great reviews.
Overall, the formatting utilities that are offered by Windows and OS X will format hard drives, but there may be cases when they will fail to format a hard drive correctly. The next option is to use command line, but that’s more complex and not for everyone. Using the variety of hard drive formatting and partitioning utilities featured in this post, you should have no problems getting hard drives or even USB flash drives formatted correctly. Enjoy!